


A Memory of What Never Was

by Hobbiton33



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Deathly Hallows AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 22:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5309987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hobbiton33/pseuds/Hobbiton33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione finds a Muggle photograph and remembers an encounter from her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Memory of What Never Was

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! Usually I'm a die hard Ron and Hermione fan, so this is new territory for me. But this is just a little something I thought up one day and I decided try to put it down on paper (Internet?). I hope you like it! 
> 
> Also, the song Petrichor by Keaton Henson provides a nice reading aesthetic if you're wanting to feel some kind of way.

It was a Muggle photograph, not something entirely uncommon to find within her own belongings. She kept a few here and there; one of her and her parents on her most recent birthday, a snowy landscape from the year they had gone skiing over the Christmas holiday. But pulling this one from the depths of her trunk, hidden beneath the orphan socks and slightly too small robes, she, with a slightly sick feeling, knew that this one would show neither of these things when she turned it over. She sat back on her heels, holding it in her hands, looking at the various creases left on the white back of the picture from its years at the bottom of the trunk, all the while wondering whether or not she wanted to go back to this memory. It was the only thing she had left of the way she had once felt about him, this picture and the memory it contained, and she didn’t know if she could bear to see it again, knowing that it could only remain a memory, that circumstances would never allow her to act on her feelings for him. She loved Ron, she always had, and loving him, while not always easy, was what was expected of her, what she would do for the rest of her life. After the battle and its aftermath, she had sunk into his arms and they had held each other to combat their own respective grief and relative happiness at the worst time of their young lives being over. But the comfort of his arms didn’t stop her from looking over his shoulder at another couple; at the boy she had always called her best friend. Only he and Hermione knew what was contained in the photograph she held in her hands from all those years ago. 

* * * * *

She couldn’t bear leaving him alone all summer with that awful family of his. She knew how much it pained him to stay there all summer, how consumed he became with his own unhappiness, even if he wouldn’t ever admit it outright to her or anyone else. She replied to one of the many letters they sent back and forth over that summer asking him if he would like to accompany her to her aunt’s wedding, if only just to get him out of the house for a couple of days. She nervously pushed away the implications that taking one’s friend to a wedding could hold, repeating over and over to herself that this was all for his benefit, a bright spot in the otherwise dark days of his summer. 

There was a photo booth in the corner of the reception where one of her many cousins had placed directions for how to set the camera’s timer and how to immediately print the photo of their choosing. Laughing giddily in a distinctly uncharacteristic fashion, she had pulled him to that corner and they festooned themselves with silly props, a feathery boa for her and a black top hat for him. They laughed and made faces and took picture after picture, for once acting their age, forgetting the troubles of their secret world. After twirling her around and dipping her in his arms for yet another pose, he pulled her upright, her face red from being upside down and his with the ghost of a laugh still etched upon it. Her hands had landed on his chest in an attempt to steady herself and she felt his as they rested on her lower back; his green eyes gazed into her brown ones, containing what she wouldn’t dare to believe was a question that he would ever ask of her. 

It was the moment immediately after she had registered this fact that was contained within the one picture she had actually kept from that night. He had leaned in and kissed her, full on the mouth, surprisingly strong and confident. Her body had responded automatically, one hand moving to the lapel of his jacket to pull him closer, the other coming up to his cheek, holding his face more securely to hers. The bulb flashed and the moment was over almost as soon as it had begun. 

* * * * *

They never brought it up. She never knew why he had done it; never allowed herself to consider why she had let him. It was too painful, too confusing; she would have Ron one day when he came to his senses and Harry would have Ginny when he was done martyring himself for the wizarding world. That was the way it would be, the way it was always supposed to be. It didn’t matter how she felt about him or that the depth of her feelings made her worry over him in a way that she insisted to herself was only sisterly. He was like her brother, just her best friend. To admit otherwise would be to turn every relationship she had built during her time at Hogwarts on its head. So she buried it, focused on her studies, on Ron, defeating Voldemort, anything, and eventually she convinced herself that her feelings were gone, or at least put to bed. They could never be together and that was ok, because there was no other way of keeping her life as she knew it intact. 

But now, sitting here with her trunk and this picture, it all came back to her; the feelings that she had so carefully written off and bricked away in her mind. She knew what she had chosen and that it was not him and that there was no way that she could turn the picture over and see what she would never have. Her hands moved to rip the picture in half, to throw away this memory and feelings that it contained, but she found that she couldn’t do it. Here she was, stuck in this limbo between who she was and who she never could be and she couldn’t bring herself put that part of her life to rest. Instead of making the decision now, she would put it off for a little longer, until the next time she decided to clean out her old school trunk. Very careful to not let herself see anything but the white backing, she carefully placed the picture facedown at the bottom of the trunk and let the lid slam on what never was.


End file.
